Social Media Marketing for Med Spas: Connect & Build Loyalty! Interview w/ Chris Balbi

Summary

Med Spa Success Strategies: Social Media Marketing for Med Spas – Connect & Build Loyalty!

Hosted by Ricky Shockley

Featuring Chris Balaby, Director of Marketing and Operations at Mesha Aesthetics

Release Date: January 6, 2025

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Introduction

In the Med Spa Success Strategies podcast episode titled "Social Media Marketing for Med Spas: Connect & Build Loyalty! Interview with Chris Balbi," host Ricky Shockley delves deep into the nuances of effective social media marketing tailored specifically for med spas and aesthetics practices. Ricky is joined by Chris Balaby, a seasoned marketing professional with over 14 years of experience at Mesha Aesthetics. Chris brings a wealth of knowledge, combining creativity with psychological principles to craft impactful marketing strategies.

Notable Introduction Quote:

"Chris blends creativity with sound psychological principles in a way that allows him to implement highly effective solutions that generate meaningful business results."
— Ricky Shockley [00:01]

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Guest Background

Chris Balaby serves as the Director of Marketing and Operations at Mesha Aesthetics, overseeing five offices in Eastern Pennsylvania. With certifications like Facebook Blueprint and mentorship under Jonah Berger, Chris possesses a robust understanding of viral marketing and community building.

Key Points:

• Experience: 15 years in the medical spa field.
• Unique Approach: Balances running a med spa with marketing, enabling practical and teachable insights.
• Current Focus: Managing tech aspects of marketing, social media presence, and website management.

Chris Balaby's Introduction Quote:

"I don't just do the marketing aspect of med spas to other med spas. I run a med spa. Try saying that five times fast."
— Chris Balaby [01:31]

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The Role of Social Media in Med Spa Marketing

Ricky explores the challenges med spa owners face with social media, emphasizing confusion about objectives and strategies. Chris responds by highlighting the common mistake of using social media merely as a sales tool.

Key Insights:

• Community Building Over Selling:
  "Stop trying to use social media to sell. You should be using social media to build a community and create an environment where people trust you."
  — Chris Balaby [02:39]

• Engagement and Storytelling:
  Focus on engaging content that tells your story rather than overt selling.
  "Social media is about telling your story and selling yourself."
  — Chris Balaby [03:35]

• Psychological Principles:
  Incorporating triggers and social currency to make content relatable. Using timely events (e.g., Thanksgiving) to create relevant and engaging posts.

Notable Strategies:

• Gamification: Turning posts into games (e.g., guessing the weight of a turkey) to enhance engagement.
• Educational Content: Including information about services like Botox to inform and attract potential clients.

Example Quote:

"When you stop focusing so much on using social media to make you money, inevitably social media will make you money."
— Chris Balaby [02:39]

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Content Creation and Social Media Framework

Chris outlines a structured weekly content plan that Mesha Aesthetics employs to maintain consistent and engaging social media presence.

Weekly Content Schedule:

1. Monday – Information Monday:
   Static images with detailed information about specific services.

2. Tuesday – Trivia Tuesday:
   Interactive quizzes or contests related to the previous day's information, often accompanied by before-and-after images.

3. Wednesday – Way Back Wednesday:
   Educational posts tracing the evolution of treatments or services.

4. Thursday – Testimonial Thursday:
   User-generated content where clients share their experiences.

5. Friday – Fun Friday:
   Flexible content that can range from trending topics to spontaneous promotions.

Chris Balaby's Framework Quote:

"Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday are very structured. And then Friday is Friday. Let's see what happens."
— Chris Balaby [11:44]

Additional Tips:

• Consistency:
  "Instagram just released that they like reliability, consistency over everything."
  — Chris Balaby [12:24]

• Planning:
  Using a monthly calendar to pre-plan posts reduces daily stress and ensures a strategic approach.

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Engagement Beyond Social Media: Email and Text Marketing

Moving the conversation from social media to email and text marketing, Chris emphasizes the importance of omnichannel strategies to maximize reach and effectiveness.

Key Strategies:

• Exclusive Offers:
  Encourage social media followers to subscribe to newsletters and text lists by offering exclusive promotions.

• Omnichannel Marketing:
  "Social media is just a way to collect information and then use that information to promote your services."
  — Chris Balaby [17:05]

• Content Diversification:
  Including non-industry specifics like recipes in newsletters to boost engagement.

Notable Quote:

"We have 20,000 people signed up for our newsletter, which a majority of our sales come from the newsletter."
— Chris Balaby [17:05]

Practical Advice:

• Combine Channels: Use social media to drive sign-ups for email and text lists.
• Engage with Value: Offer valuable content in newsletters to keep subscribers engaged beyond sales pitches.

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Real-Life Community Engagement

Chris discusses the significance of in-person marketing efforts and community events as extensions of digital strategies.

Key Points:

• Touch a Truck Events:
  Engaging with local families by combining children's activities with promotional offers for parents.
  "We gave out 100 cards, and out of those 100 cards, 12 of them made it back in for appointments."
  — Chris Balaby [29:14]

• Employee Involvement:
  Encouraging front desk employees to participate in community events, enhancing authenticity and outreach.

Practical Example:

• Event Marketing:
  Handing out med spa gift cards at children's events to attract parent clients.

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Practical Steps for Med Spa Owners

When addressing overwhelmed practice owners, Chris offers actionable steps to effectively manage social media marketing internally.

Actionable Steps:

1. Train Existing Staff:
   "Don't let me train the practice owner. Let me train the millennial at the front desk."
   — Chris Balaby [36:01]

2. Incentivize Participation:
   Provide bonuses or incentives for staff who manage and execute social media tasks.

3. Utilize Personalities:
   Encourage staff to maintain a personable and relatable presence on social media to enhance engagement.

4. Leverage AI Tools:
   Use tools like ChatGPT to streamline content creation and management.
   "Use ChatGPT, right? Like use AI to make life easier."
   — Chris Balaby [36:59]

Example Quote:

"Find the person in your practice who can do it and pay them to do it instead of investing outwardly."
— Chris Balaby [36:47]

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Recommended Reading List

Chris shares a selection of essential reads that have influenced his marketing strategies, providing listeners with resources to deepen their understanding.

1. Marketing Magic by Chris Balaby – A spell book on Amazon.
2. Six Steps to Going Viral by Jonah Berger – Insights on creating engaging social media content.
3. Stories that Sell by Kendra Hall – A guide on leveraging storytelling in marketing.

Quote:

"Stories Sell. She's a keynote speaker that I run into a bunch of times. So she's definitely one to grab as well."
— Chris Balaby [35:19]

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Final Tips and Closing Thoughts

As the conversation wraps up, Chris emphasizes the importance of enjoying the social media process and staying authentic.

Key Takeaways:

• Enjoy the Process:
  "Don't overthink it. Like, social media is fun."
  — Chris Balaby [36:59]

• Authenticity Over Perfection:
  Avoid overcomplicating posts with excessive text or trying to perfectly align with trends. Focus on genuine engagement and in-the-moment content.

• Continuous Learning and Adaptation:
  Stay updated with platform changes and adapt strategies accordingly to maintain effectiveness.

Final Quote:

"Don't over think it. Like, social media is fun."
— Chris Balaby [36:59]

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Conclusion

This episode of the Med Spa Success Strategies podcast offers a comprehensive guide to mastering social media marketing for med spas. Chris Balaby's expertise underscores the significance of community building, strategic content planning, and leveraging multiple marketing channels to drive business growth. By integrating these insights, med spa owners can enhance their online presence, foster client loyalty, and achieve greater financial freedom.

Call to Action: For med spa and aesthetics practice owners seeking to elevate their marketing strategies, consider implementing the tools and techniques discussed in this episode. Additionally, explore Chris Balaby’s recommended readings to further refine your approach.

Connect with Chris Balaby:

• Instagram: @BotoxByMisha
• Website: chrisbalby.com

Learn More: Visit MedSpaMagicMarketing.com for more marketing insights and to schedule a consultation.

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This podcast episode is brought to you by Med Spa Magic Marketing. If your med spa or aesthetic practice needs digital marketing services, including Facebook, Instagram, Google ads, lead generation, and appointment booking, visit MedSpaMagicMarketing.com.

Transcript

[Ricky Shockley]

Hey there, I'm your host, Ricky shockley, owner of MedSpa Magic Marketing. And this is the MedSpa Success Strategies podcast where MedSpa and aesthetics practice owners come to discover strategies and tactics that help them better market and manage their practice so they can grow, improve profitability and have more financial freedom. Excited today to be joined by Chris Balaby. Chris is the Director of Marketing and Operations at Mesha Aesthetics where he's been a key player in the practice growth for the past 14 plus years. Chris is Facebook Blueprint Certified among other certifications and spent time studying under Jonah Berger, thought to be one of the most revolutionary minds in the making things viral industry. I added this part myself, but I think Chris blends creativity with sound psychological principles in a way that allows him to implement highly effective solutions that generate meaningful business results. I was really impressed with our conversation. Lots of cool takeaways and tidbits that are going to help you with your social media marketing in terms of making your content more engaging, helping you build community around what you're doing on social media, and also some really cool offline marketing tactics that are worth exploring. So let's jump into the conversation with Chris Bowy. Chris, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. We're excited to have you.

[Chris Balaby]

No problem. I'm equally as excited and I promise not to just talk in sound bites that you can clip up and post on social media later.

[Ricky Shockley]

I always think about during the interviews now, oh, that's going to make a great sound bite. So, yeah, so I'm excited to talk about some marketing and social media things today. But Chris, do you want to just give people a little bit of a background on yourself?

[Chris Balaby]

Absolutely. So I work in the medical spa field. I've been here for 15 years now. Part of what I think makes me unique is that I don't just do the marketing aspect of med spas to other med spas. I run a med spa. Right. Try saying that five times fast. So I'm not one of those those who can't do teach. I'm one of those who can do and teach at the same time. So currently we have five offices here in Eastern Pennsylvania and we're gearing up for our holiday event, which is this Thursday. And so I handle all of the tech side of marketing along with our social media presence and our website and things like that.

[Ricky Shockley]

Awesome. Cool. And I know one of the things that originally got us in touch was just looking at social media. I think this is a place that a lot of practices struggle. They're not sure what to do. They're not sure what the goal of social media use is for their business. I think people tend to feel very lost. I think small businesses in general and med spas falling into that category. Just what are we doing on social media? So I guess could you speak a little bit to, like, how do you see social media just the organic part of just managing a page and building, Building an audience and what, what the goals are associated with social media use?

[Chris Balaby]

Oh, my gosh. Absolutely. So my biggest pet peeve is people try to use social media to sell. Stop it. You should be using social media to build a community and you want to build an environment where people trust you, Right. Nobody wants to see those weekly ads from like the supermarket or Target or Home Depot on social media. If they wanted weekly ads, they would get a weekly ad. They go to social media to be social. So you should be engaging in conversations and starting conversations. And when you stop focusing so much on using social media to make you money, inevitably social media will make you money. Right? Kind of like the old adage, like when you stop looking for love, you find it. When you stop trying to sell on social media, you inevitably sell yourself on social media. There's this topic could go on for hours and hours and hours. There's a book by Kendra hall who wrote Stories Sell. And that's a big part of social media is telling your story, right? It's not about selling, it's about telling your story and selling yourself.

[Ricky Shockley]

Yeah, love that. So how do you go about telling your story and showing personality? How do you go about connecting? Cause I think one of the other challenges people have when it comes to social media environment is how do I not be so boring that people just tune this out? Like, what. What is the incentive and what am I doing here in terms of the tactics to get people to actually engage and to build community?

[Chris Balaby]

I'm literally just going to fill people's bookshelves by the end of this conversation.

[Ricky Shockley]

Perfect. I love it.

[Chris Balaby]

There's another book called Six Steps to Going Viral by Jonah Berger, and it talks about the six things you should do in a social media post that create engagement. And, you know, when I say going viral, I have to really reiterate here that we're not trying to go viral across the country because you're not selling across the country, right? You just want to go viral in your community. And some of the quick examples of that are social currency. When you talk about something, when you talk about yourself, make sure people can relate and identify to how it can help them. Right? Triggers are a big part of that too, right? That's like talking about Christmas around Christmas and talking about the Oscars around the Oscars and things like that. So if you stop thinking about just yourself and start thinking about relating yourself to your community, it inevitably just becomes easier to chatting with your guests. For example, Thanksgiving just happened here. I love that whenever this gets published, it's going to be like January. And here we are talking about Thanksgiving and Christmas. But Thanksgiving just happened. And we did a contest on Tuesday which was holding up a frozen turkey and saying, guess the weight of this turkey. Right? People identify with Thanksgiving. It's a trigger because it's that there's games involved. People love to be right. And then on Thursday, we post a picture of the baked bird and I'm so sorry if you're a vegan, everybody. We post a picture of the baked bird and it kind of full circle moment. We are promoting our med spa. So you're like, how does this relate? Well, the turkey, however heavy it was, we gave away that number of units of Botox and in that post we talked about what is Botox, right? So now we gave away 20 units of Botox. Botox is a neuromodulator that helps you with your wrinkles, and we gave it away. All of these pieces together fit into a giant puzzle of social media, Right? And it sounds complex, but it was just us posting a picture holding up a frozen turkey, asking people to guess the weight, and on Thursday telling them the weight, and we strung Botox through the entire thing.

[Ricky Shockley]

You just so obviously Chris knows what he's talking about. You just listed like, multiple. Multiple, like triggers and psychological principles as to why that type of works. No. Which I love, though. That's. That's. I love. You know, there's so many people, I think, who talk about, I know how to do this just because I've kind of done it. You've not only done it, but you've studied it and you've figured out how to become good at it. And I think there's a ton of value in that. And so when you do something like that, that you're like, hey, it's a simple post, but your brain, because of the way that you've studied and the way that you trained and your experience, it defaults to putting that together in two seconds. I think most practice owners struggle, or people, even internal teams that might manage social media, they struggle to come up with those types of ideas. So those recommended reading lists, I think maybe we'll put some of those in the show notes too. But could you go through. I really like you. You mentioned those. Just kind of off the cuff there. But there were a few things in that one social media post that I thought were really valuable. Could you maybe rewind and touch on each of those just so people can think about that as they're building their social media planner?

[Chris Balaby]

Yeah. So first was a trigger, Right? So we. The trigger was Thanksgiving. People are already thinking about turkey. They're already thinking about it. So the fact that we're holding a frozen turkey triggers people to be like, this office is relevant. They know what they're doing. The second was called gamification. We turned the post into a game. Please guess how much this turkey weighs. Third part of gamification is the prize for the however much this turkey weighs, you win that in Botox. And then the next layer is will we educate on what Botox is? Right. So why am I going to win a prize if I don't know what it is? So most of my followers know what Botox is. But inevitably, due to the algorithm, the more people that comment, the more people will see this post eventually. The hope is people who aren't following me see the post and from there they might be like, wait a second, I've been thinking about Botox. What is Botox? Well, the good news is you don't have to go anywhere. It's in the post as well. So it was a trigger. Layered on top of gamification, layered on top of patient education, layered on top of a prize. And then to tie it all together, the imagery was someone who's very recognizable in our office. She's our boss. Her name is Michelle. She was the one holding the turkey. So that's familiarity.

[Ricky Shockley]

See, that's. Those are a lot of things that go into creating a social post. And I think so many people, I think the mistake that we make in marketing generally is we think about just checking the box as. As finishing the task. Like, okay, I know I need to post on social media now. This is kind of the Gary Vaynerchuk advice. And I love Gary. I was just listening to some of his stuff again this morning, which is probably why he's on my mind. But he talks about a lot of just, just kind of just do the thing. But I think there's. There is this risk of just doing the thing and not doing it well means it's not going to probably be successful. Like if all you're doing is is posting article links to your social media feeds or like generic images, like promoting specials, you're not going to do an effective job engaging your local community. And you really want people to know, like, and trust you and to be top of mind. And social media is a tool that's allowing you to check all of those boxes so that when somebody is thinking about getting Botox for the first time or they're new to town trying to figure out where to go, one of the things that we talk about, when people are making a purchase decision so they're trying to figure out what med spa they're going to visit for the first time, it's really three buckets of factors. It's reputation or know, like and trust, price and convenience. And one of the things we assume almost everybody's doing is they're probably going to your Instagram page and they're trying to get a feel for your business. Like, who do I want to be? Who do I want to be seeing every couple of months? Who do I want to be putting my trust in for these services? Where. Where does it look like it's a fun, engaging place to go where people really know what they're. And I think you're able to tell that story with social media. So being strategic about this, knowing some of the things that Chris just discussed, I think those are important things and to not just get in the habit of checking the box.

[Chris Balaby]

And I think the other part is it's not a George Foreman grill. You can't set it and forget it. Right? So because you made a good post last Wednesday, you're not done. If you want to be good, you've got to go back and check last week's posts, what performed well, and then you kind of learn. Okay, so my audience responds well to games. My audience responds well to patient education. My audience responds, you know what I'm saying? So you have to check out what does well and use that in the future to kind of cultivate your community.

[Ricky Shockley]

When it comes to a framework. So that was one example of a really effective social post, obviously. And you all have done a really good job building your social media and managing that community and really building something substantial there. Is there a certain list? Like, do you have five or six different types of frameworks that you're generally putting in the mix? If you had to give just a ballpark example of the types of posts, posts that you find do best?

[Chris Balaby]

Sure. So you can find all of this in my book Marketing Magic on Amazon for $8 plug. No. So it's more info Monday. On Monday, we just bombard you with information on a specific service. Right. That's one that's just a static image, lots of information. Then it's Trivia Tuesday, where I usually give away the service. I talked about on Monday. And I say, okay, you learned it yesterday. Now's your time to show me what you've learned. Go back if you need to. It's an open book test. Tell me what you learned or I asked a specific question. Usually that day comes with a before and after. Way Back Wednesday is where I typically will post. Like if we're talking about microneedling, for example, microneedling now has like individual capsule tips and it's got very controlled methods. But back in like the early 1990s, microneedling was a roller. And I'll talk about the evolution of microneedling by like a way Back Wednesday. Right. Talkback Thursday is when I invite clients who currently get microneedling with us to share their experience. This is now UGA user generated experience. I can pull from that and I can talk to my clients like everyone else is getting it. Why aren't you? And then Friday is. I mean, I don't know if we're allowed to curse on here. Sorry, go for it. Usually it's fuck it Friday and I just screw the format. And it's whatever's going on in the world. Did Justin Timberlake get arrested? Sure, I'll post about that. Did Lindsay Lohan just have her third facelift? Absolutely. Let's talk about that.

[Ricky Shockley]

Right.

[Chris Balaby]

So Monday, Tuesday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, very structured. And then Friday is Friday. Let's see what happens. Cool.

[Ricky Shockley]

I love that. So you have that flex day kind of scheduled in. So. So that's great. I'm going to put all those notes. So Chris mentioned that book. I'm going to make sure that that's in there, the social media account. So you all can kind of just see what they're up to and get and see that in live time. I think that'll be interesting too. So again, all these links are going to be in the show notes if you're listening to this. So you mentioned a specific kind of cadence. There was that. So you're basically posting five times a week.

[Chris Balaby]

Yeah.

[Ricky Shockley]

So I know people are always looking for that and that's maybe overanalyzed, but do you have just so to kind of put people's mind at ease? Because I think that's one of the things that overwhelms practice owners. Do I need to do this once a week? Do I need to do this every day? What is A general gist of a recommendation there.

[Chris Balaby]

I'm going to break everyone's heart. It used to be, if you had asked me two weeks ago, it was quality over quantity. But Instagram is trying to compete with TikTok right now, and Meta is trying to Meta is Facebook and Instagram combined trying to compete with TikTok. So now they're looking for not just quality, but also quantity and consistency. So if you can get in the habit, I. My habit's 9:07 Monday through Friday. I just post at 9:07am Monday through Friday. Instagram wants to promote accounts that are reputable and reliable. So by having that consistency now, again, if you're listening to this in 2026, I don't know what changed. Right. So this is what's working now. But for now, Instagram just released that they like reliability, consistency over everything. I mean, honestly, you can't post those flyers we talked about at the beginning of the podcast. You can't post just your sales every day. Right. So it does take a little bit of planning. I'm a pencil and paper guy. Every month, first or second of the month, I print out a paper calendar. I just Google like December 2024, printable calendar, print it out and then I hand write, like notes. What are my weeks gonna be? What is it gonna look like? That way I'm not stressed. I don't wake up every day, like, what am I gonna post? I kind of have a framework for the month. It ties into my email newsletter. We should probably talk about that, actually, because a lot of what we talk about on social media does not sell. What sells is the email newsletter.

[Ricky Shockley]

Yeah. So putting a bow on maybe that original part of the conversation with social media, when practice owners are doing this, it's always been my contention and feel free to push back on this. This is a really hard thing to outsource, or at least to outsource completely. And one of my biggest pet peeves.

[Chris Balaby]

Is outsourcing your social media. Please.

[Ricky Shockley]

Ok, good. Yeah. It's like, I think so many practice owners, you want the quick fix, you want it just to be hands off and somebody to do it. And you make the mistake of hiring an agency. And if you've seen, and this is not an indictment on all agencies, I think there are some that are probably going above and beyond. They're sending film crews out, they're gathering content from clients. Fine. But if all you're doing is paying someone to post generic things on your social media feed, you're missing the point. And you're missing the benefit of the. Of using social media to your advantage, to your business advantage. Like, it's not a box to check. Like Chris said, it's supposed to be leading somewhere. This is a business that we're running. So we're not building community just because it's like a fun thing we want to do on the side. We know that there's a business benefit to this. And if we can be upfront on the social media platforms, developing an audience, engaging our local community, being known, being liked, being trusted, that's going to resound to a business benefit. So switching gears where, Chris, you're thinking about social media, we're not worrying about. I'm not using my Instagram maiden feed to sell. Like, maybe every once in a while you're talking about a promotion or a party. But the main thing is we're trying to build engagement. Like, we want people pulling up their social. Their Instagram feed and seeing, oh, there's that post again. I love the. When they, like, they're always funny, they're always engaging. Let me participate in the poll. Let me provide an answer. Maybe I can win something. But they're constant, they're constantly engaged, and they're seeing that and they're engaging with it on a weekly basis is really the idea. Absolutely.

[Chris Balaby]

And you want. I mean, I hate being so generic because I feel like, Gary, beat this to beat a dead horse, and I'm about to beat a dead horse. It's the funnel, right? So it's not just the sales funnel, where it's like, social media leads to an appointment, leads to a sale. It's also social media leads to them signing up for your email newsletter. I have a big thing that I've heard once and it stuck with me. Kim Kardashian is not a good salesperson. Kim Kardashian just has a big audience that listens to her. And so you don't have to be good at sales. You just need an audience. And so if you use social media to build an audience, they then sign up your email newsletter. We have 20,000 people signed up for our newsletter, which a majority of our sales come from the newsletter. Because social media is swampy. Right? And your email news box is swampy. I'm about to double down. My newsletter doesn't get opened via Gmail. My newsletter gets opened via text message because I also collected everyone's cell phone numbers. And when I send out the newsletter, I double down with a text message as well. Like, hey, clogged inbox problems. I just want to make sure you got this. It's called Omnichannel marketing, which I know Ricky's definitely heard of this before, but we're going to talk about everyone. Omnichannel Marketing is an 18 point Scrabble word in case you ever play Scrabble. And it means multi channel, obviously. So when I do drop a newsletter, it's on my social media, it's in people's inboxes, and most importantly, it's in their text box in text inbox because that's where people see it. Right. So social media is just a way to collect information and then use that information to promote your services.

[Ricky Shockley]

Yeah, I love that. And don't miss the opportunity. You created this newsletter content, whatever that looks like. Why just send it out as an email newsletter when you know that's going to get maybe 30% of people opening it. When you have their, you could text them the link to the newsletter. You can make sure it's on your Instagram feed or your Facebook page. Um, let's go a little deeper if it's okay with you, Chris, on the newsletter. But to, to go back to one thing on the social media side, I think we talked a lot about Instagram, platform wise, where do you recommend Practice owners are investing time and energy platform wise. At least right now, going into 2025.

[Chris Balaby]

I still think Instagram reigns supreme for this demographic, especially med spas. Um, it's hard because I understand the value of YouTube. Truly I do understand it will be the next wave of where like the Gen Z pops up. Unfortunately, it's not as hyper focused for me. For me, TikTok, I have a lot. I have 75,000 people who follow our TikTok, but a majority of them are California, Florida and New York. They're not coming to Pennsylvania for their services. Instagram is hyper local. Right. Instagram people are coming my way for it specifically.

[Ricky Shockley]

Yeah, I love that. And this is one of the things I talk about with SEO and blogging, which is a whole side rant. But we're talking about a business benefit, right? The vanity of the 75,000 follow like you just mentioned on TikTok. It doesn't really do that much for Chris because he knows, hey, so many of these people are not potential customers I'd rather invest my time and energy on.

[Chris Balaby]

Okay, I think I'm getting kicked out of here.

[Ricky Shockley]

Okay, go ahead.

[Chris Balaby]

It's just me. It's just me. It's me and Ricky. No, it's me. Sorry, sorry. We're actively busy.

[Ricky Shockley]

It's okay.

[Chris Balaby]

I probably have 15 more minutes. Are you okay? All right, great.

[Ricky Shockley]

Cool.

[Chris Balaby]

I didn't have more time, but the. I'm in a treatment room right now, so, you know.

[Ricky Shockley]

Yeah, that's perfect. Yeah. Hey, there's money to be made, right? Exactly. I'm all for it.

[Chris Balaby]

Recycle your question. I'm sorry, what was that?

[Ricky Shockley]

No, it was just. So it sounds like you're not worried about the vanity metric because you know that the goal here is to turn these people into customers or to develop better relationships with your existing patients. But there's a business benefit to all of this.

[Chris Balaby]

Can I blow your mind back to my Instagram conference that I had? Instagram likes, quantity, quality, but they don't love big follower counts. So they're battling the bots right now, and they're no longer looking for follower count, and neither are your consumers. Your consumers are looking for engagement on posts because it shows that you're real, Right? Who cares if that before and after has 70,000 likes? They're probably bought. Consumers know that now. Consumers want to see people commenting, sharing. They want to see that actual human engagement. So stop focusing on the vanity metrics. Like Ricky was saying, Start focusing on the engagement metrics.

[Ricky Shockley]

Yeah. Yeah, that's great. So Instagram kind of reigns supreme for now. You're still on TikTok. You posting to Facebook still or.

[Chris Balaby]

I'm on YouTube and Facebook. My Instagram just auto posts to my Facebook, which is convenient. I do the occasional TikTok. I do post on YouTube when I remember, but I just don't put in the energy there because I didn't sign up to make content for math the masses. I signed up to make money for my providers. And that has to happen on a local level. We've always talked about having a Patreon. We've always talked about, you know, going that extra mile. It's just not in the cards this year. We have to refill our books. We saw a big pop in 2020, right after the pandemic, or we were able to reopen. We had a backlog of people trying to be seen, and we kind of got used to that new normal of, like, being slammed. But then things tapered out and I panicked and I thought, is it me? But it's not. It's just we had backed up demand, and now we're leveled out. And, you know, my providers are always kind of hesitant, like, are we doing badly or poorly? I'm like, no, we're just back at our normal, right? And now it's.

[Ricky Shockley]

That is so True. Yep. I think that's how, I think that's how I remember, you know, in marketing when we would look at like analytics graphs, prior to Covid, everything was pretty consistent. So you were kind of just looking at things year over year. Ever since COVID everything's thrown off because you had the, the falling off the cliff, the giant boom after and now a certain amount of normalization. So I think people, people got to thinking that whatever 2022 looked like was normal in 2021. And it's probably not like we're settling into a more normal, I would say, course of business at this point.

[Chris Balaby]

What's crazy, and I know this is more about social media, but I'm so sorry, we're going to go on a tangent. I'm finding that we got so lucky with people working from home that our books were so full based on people being able to just pop in for Botox. Now people are like, I'm back in the office, I need an afternoon or I need an evening or I need a weekend. And now we're trying to reshuffle our schedule which, you know, full circle, bring me to social media. I'm actually seeing an increase in engagement because people are back at work and bored. They want to like scroll, they want to see your content. So it's worked out for me, but my providers are like, I used to be slammed Wednesdays between 9 and 12. Ghost town. I used to be empty Thursdays from 5 to 9 packed. Because people, their needs change.

[Ricky Shockley]

Yeah, absolutely. This episode is brought to you by Med Spa Magic Marketing, my agency. We help Med spas and aesthetics practices grow with more effective marketing strategies. And I know that's a vague phrase, right? It's a vague claim. So I have an offer for you. I offer this to any new prospects if you're interested in expert exploring any of another marketing option, a new agency, or just getting into Facebook, Instagram, Google Ads for the first time. I'd love to show you why we're different, what we're doing for clients. And we can do that via a one and a half hour planning session where I'll outline a specific marketing plan and I'll give you all of the blueprints that we would implement if we were to do business together. Now you can take that, use that on your own, hire someone else to help you execute it or work with us. We really don't hold anything back on that strategy call. And I think you'll have a lot of confidence in how you manage your marketing investment moving forward. Understanding some of the nuances that can help you implement more effective marketing strategies for your business. So if you want to do that, you can go to MedSpa magic marketing.com awesome. All right, so, so going from social, you said that you. Social is the way that we're trying to build an audience, build connections, build awareness, develop better relationships and then you're trying to get them kind of that next step is thinking about this as a funnel. I want people on my email and my text list. Yeah. Are you other than your people that are actual patients that you can collect their info from in office, are there any strategies you've used to get people from just like who have kind of been paying attention to what you're doing on social to the email list or the text list?

[Chris Balaby]

I do by offering exclusive offers in my email or text list that I mentioned on social media. Like I'm not telling you what my promotion is on my social. I'm telling you that it's only going to show up in your email or your text and if you want it, you got to sign up. So it's kind of like a double edged strategy. I do want to touch real quick on thinking about your newsletter not just as a sales pitch but also an opportunity for social engagement. In my newsletters I always include recipes and they're the second highest clicked link in my newsletters. I'm not a chef. I'm not. I don't cook at a supermarket. But people now open my newsletters because this promo might not relate to me but the recipe might. So cool.

[Ricky Shockley]

Yeah.

[Chris Balaby]

Don't be afraid to throw other non industry specific tidbits in your newsletters.

[Ricky Shockley]

Yeah. Like show some personality, share some things that are interesting. The goal of the newsletter is also engagement. It's sales but it's also, it's also to continue the engagement element. So figuring out ways to do that.

[Chris Balaby]

Like yeah man, you go.

[Ricky Shockley]

No, I was gonna say like you mentioned like the Wednesday like when you're doing like the educational thing on like the Wednesday part of the schedule. Do you include anything like that in the newsletter typically or is it more like fun thing?

[Chris Balaby]

Yeah, so like I'll definitely include the top is always the sales pitch because if people, it's always about the full like only read one thing, I want them to read that. Then the recipe pulls them down a little further. Then it's usually a fun fact about the office or an educational piece and then like I break it down into smaller pieces.

[Ricky Shockley]

Yeah. Awesome, that's great. So thinking about social media, moving it into the newsletter and the text list providing that incentive, which is, hey, I'm going to give you some great deals and the only way you're getting those is to be on this, on this list as a subscriber. Yeah, for sure.

[Chris Balaby]

And then I also replug about the book. My chapter 15 of my book, it's a shorty, it's only 50 pages, is called Social Media is Dead. Which, like, people are like, isn't that your industry? Are you not panicked? I'm like, no, but I'm just letting you know that social media is dying people. And it will come back. But people love in person engagement right now because they were stuck in their homes in 2020. So now we have this 20, 22, 23, 24 value where people like events, they like parties. So I bring QR codes to bridal expos, to tree lighting ceremonies, to whatever I'm doing. And I say like, hey, I'm going to give you a $25 gift card right now. You just have to sign up for my email list or sign up for my text program. And so that's your reward for signing up. And so. But I do that IRL in real life, you know, and it gets people excited. They're like, oh, okay, well, you've got a fun personality. I want to see more and I want that $25 gift card. So don't be afraid to, like, bring.

[Ricky Shockley]

In time, multiple layers of greatness there. So first of all, giving that incentive, and that's such a easy way to do it, right? You're giving them a $25 gift card to your spa, which means they've got to come in and spend money with you to redeem the reward. But it's also serving as the incentive to sign up for the newsletter in the text list.

[Chris Balaby]

Exactly. So then, then I get to bother them every 30 days with the text message. And you know, I'm very forward with when people sign up, they're like, oh, what am I signing up for? Oh, well, you're going to get our newsletter. But it's my personality infused into the newsletter. So you're going to love it because it's not a sales pitch. It's some flaming homosexual, like, yelling at you about cookie recipes. Right. Like, it's not just like Botox. You need it for now. You know, like part of what's more. Yeah, I think part of what sets us apart is that, like our catchphrase is you're already beautiful. And people are always like, wait a second, you're a medical spa. Don't you prey on people feeling down or like needing your services? And I've always, you know, you've heard the expression before, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. So like, no, I tell people they're gorgeous before they sit down and then once they do sit down, they're disarmed and more comfortable expressing how they're feeling and what they might need.

[Ricky Shockley]

Yeah. And you're just patching the gaps of insecurities and. Yeah, I love that. And you mentioned something else there which I know is not related to our social media, but this is something that came up on one of the recent episodes that if you're watching this will be the episode just before this in the playlist. And it hasn't been published yet as of now. But the in real life component. Yeah, people are like, like guerrilla marketing, being boots on the ground, being engaged in the community. I think so many people are used to in the social media environment, the Internet environment, if I just want to like sit at home and like business to come in and people don't want to do the work of building relationships in the community. One other thing that's on my mind there, I've even noticed anecdotally, Chris, like you said, I. I remember when I used to pull up Instagram and like my brother and sister in law where they'd be like out in downtown Nashville, I'd be like, what are they up to tonight? I notice now they're not even posting stories when they're out. So I think people are a little bit. They're. They're not as on social media as they were. So the importance of being engaged in real life, it's an extra opportunity to build relationships. Can you speak to that a little bit? What kind of stuff are you generally doing in real life?

[Chris Balaby]

Yeah, your competitors aren't doing it. So you are. Right. Like if you want to stand out, you've got to do it. My biggest draw so far this season has been touch a Truck event. I don't know, Ricky. Where do you live? Where are you from? What area?

[Ricky Shockley]

We're in the Nashville area now.

[Chris Balaby]

Okay. Do you have touch a Truck events? Do you know what?

[Ricky Shockley]

That doesn't sound familiar. No. What is it?

[Chris Balaby]

So it's gear.

[Ricky Shockley]

Oh, we do. I saw one the other day.

[Chris Balaby]

Yes. Children who. Their parents bring them to a large area, like a parking lot where there's fire trucks, police trucks, ambulances, backhoes, diggers, whatever. And the kids get to like climb up all over them and like touch the trucks. Right. Well, where there are children, there are parents. There are tired parents who probably could use a little tlc. So what we did is we got like off Amazon dollar trucks and we put them in mesh bags and in the bag was like $5 or 5 free units of Botox. And we, like, ran around this touch truck event and we would talk to moms and be like, hey, here. In here is a toy for your kid, but also something for you, mom. Don't forget about it.

[Ricky Shockley]

Oh, cool.

[Chris Balaby]

So we gave out 100 cards, and out of those 100 cards, 12 of them made it back in for appointments.

[Ricky Shockley]

That is so cool.

[Chris Balaby]

The investment was like $110, but then it turned into these moms being like, you came to this event, which was for my child, but you knew that I needed something. So that's one of the big ones.

[Ricky Shockley]

That's awesome. I love that. And like, again, it just speaks to this idea of. And business is hard. Standing apart is difficult. There are other. You have competitors in your town that are vying for that same Botox appointment and that that cool sculpting client that you are. And you're gonna have to put in some work to push yourself over the over the edge in terms of differentiating based on reputation and know like, and trust and being engaged. So to just sit back and want to be lazy and be like, I'm just gonna outsource everything, let somebody else do it. And that doesn't mean you listening to this as the practice owner has to be the one doing it. But you need organization representing you. You need to be active with this type of stuff on social media, in the community, I guess call to action there. For what it's worth, one of my.

[Chris Balaby]

Favorite things to do is I've got front desk employees who have children who, like, would like to go to this event anyway. So I'm like, why don't you take your kid to this event, get paid to be there. I'll pay you hourly rate and hand out these things. You look less like a salesperson when you've got a child with you. And Win, win, win gets to love the event. And you have to work for an hour and a half, right?

[Ricky Shockley]

Like, yeah, that's so cool. That's great. I love that.

[Chris Balaby]

This is unrelated, but part of what I think, what sets us apart is that when I do send my providers or I do send my front desktop to these events, I usually, like, send them a gift card to Starbucks because I know that they're working on a Saturday. I'm paying them hourly. But, like, they'll get a coffee on your way too. That extra $5 changes their. Their mood for the day, Right? It gives them a reason to stay their coffee, they're caffeinated, they're grateful, and things like that. So, you know, going above and beyond as a business owner really does stand out, not just to your staff, but also I want to, you know, throw this out there. It's a little past the social media vibe. But don't forget that we're doing cosmetic work here. Right? So, like, people coming into your office, you just mentioned it. Have nine other choices for Botox within 10 miles. You're not a heart surgeon, you're not a brain surgeon. You are a cosmetic injector. Right? So you have to kind of bend over backwards for your clients sometimes to stand out. Same thing goes with social media and your newsletter. You just have to stand down. One of my favorite tips for social media is doing a 14 sale on Valentine's Day. Because Valentine's Day is 2 14. But people are like, wait a second, I've heard of 10% off. I've heard of 20% off. I might have even heard of 15% off. The fuck is. So then it stops the scroll, right? And that stands out.

[Ricky Shockley]

Yeah, that's a cool one. Stopping the scroll. Important part of social media need to capture their attention pretty quickly, and I think that's a really creative way to do it. I know I'm kind of jumping all over the place, but it's just kind of as my mind is going here. So hopefully this is helpful for the listeners with Instagram. We talked about kind of the page post. Do you all do anything with stories and how do you manage that? I know that can feel really time intensive and something else you have to.

[Chris Balaby]

Remember to do so again, learning from what I learned from Instagram, the quality and quantity of Instagram posts is now consistent. But stories, I used to blast stories and I would have all those little dots on the top of my page. I don't anymore. I do two or three a day and they get more views, so it's almost. Less is more right now. So I'm very consistent with what I do, and I'm very cautious to overdo it there. I've stopped sharing my posts to my stories because people find it redundant. Right. And if I do share my post on my story, it's usually a day or two later because people might have forgotten about it. But I try not to do it on the same day because it's like, why would you put the same billboard One right behind another. Right. So now I kind of just use that. I alternate what I put there and it's usually more behind the scenes stuff and usually tips or tricks. I did a promotion that was in the stories only. And after the promotion finished, I posted about it. I was like, did you miss out on the promo? Guess you weren't checking our stories. Might as well keep an eye on it more, more frequently, right? So like I'm hiding things. Taylor Swift is the queen of Easter eggs, right? I'm basically the Taylor Swift of med spas. Last year, last year we did a, you know, Spotify does their wrapped at the end of the year. Like they post like the top five songs you listen to. We did Misha Aesthetics Wrapped. We posted the top five services. But I capitalized like five different letters. That made no sense. And if you went to our website, you saw those five letters and it was a promo for 20% off one service, only four people. But then I posted about it two days later. Now people scrutinize every post like, is there an Easter egg in this one?

[Ricky Shockley]

See, there's so many smart strategic components of what you're doing though. And so this might be a good way to like to wrap our conversation. But I wanted to go into I guess a couple more things. The stories that makes sense because I think you risk when you're posting maybe nowadays too many things. I know, like, personally, I get to the person that's got the 96 stories, I'm like, okay, I'm not, I'm not going to watch all these. And you just skip to the next thing. Two or three is very digestible. What type of content are usually. And for those of you who are, I'm pretty sure most people listening will be. But maybe some of you enters out there. What are, what are the stories? The stories are the short disappearing components of Instagram. What type of things are you posting in the stories typically?

[Chris Balaby]

Typically I'll post like a recap of the day or if I'm doing something exciting that day. So the post was about our Christmas party, but the story was about us filling goodie bags for the Christmas story. Right. The post was the guess the weight of the Thanksgiving turkey. And the story was how we use a syringe not only to inject your face, but also inject the turkey. Right. So it's like it always supplements what this. The post was.

[Ricky Shockley]

Yeah, yeah, it's your behind the scenes, basically. Yeah, that's great. All right, so many good tactics here. Chris, do you want to list off the reading list. And I'm going to put your book definitely in as the first link in the notes here. And those other things. But some of these other things, if you're.

[Chris Balaby]

Yeah, Marketing Magic was the first one because that's my book that's on Amazon. I think there's only two books called Marketing Magic. Mine's. Mine's a spell book. You can't miss it. Under that is definitely Six Steps to Going Viral. That's by Jonah Berger. That's a really good one to read, too. And then Kendra hall writes stories that sell. She's a keynote speaker that I run into a bunch of times. So she's definitely one to grab as well. Those are the top three that I would say.

[Ricky Shockley]

Okay, that's great. And then tactically, so practice owner watching this, they're like, man, I don't have a Chris. And I'm overwhelmed already with what I'm doing. I know that I can't outsource this to somebody and be effective. What are some practical steps? I know this is maybe a hard question. What are some practical steps to getting this right?

[Chris Balaby]

Yeah. I fly around the country training people, and this is what I always say is like, don't let me train the practice owner. Let me train the millennial at the front desk. Right. So people will fly me in. I meet with a front desk person for two to three hours. We go over what you're going to post for the month. We get an Amazon budget for props. And just don't outsource it out. If you were going to pay to outsource it, don't pay your millennial front desk manager to do it or your millennial Gen Z, Gen X front desk employee to do it. Give them a little incentive, a cash bonus or whatever, but have them do it. So my tactical. If you're watching this as a business owner, find the person in your practice who can do it and pay them to do it instead of investing outwardly, you know.

[Ricky Shockley]

Amazing. Yes. I think that's phenomenal advice. Could not agree more. Any last tidbits of advice just from a marketing. Social media news. Anything that's kind of on your mind that you feel like is something people just whiff on.

[Chris Balaby]

Yeah, don't overthink it. Like, social media is fun. It's. It literally is. I hate this word, but it's terminal. Like, what you post today is going tomorrow. People have add. Don't over stress. Don't post words on Instagram. Please, for the love of God, do not post pictures with words on instagram oh, and Ricky, have me back. Let's do an entire episode on this. But use ChatGPT, right? Like use AI life easier. Is it like, change my life, let me help it change yours. Don't overthink it.

[Ricky Shockley]

Yeah, cool. Awesome. Well, Chris, where can people find out more about you again? It'll be in the notes, but just give us this.

[Chris Balaby]

So, I mean, I always tell people to follow Botox by Misha, our Instagram. Like, it's me who runs it. You'll see me a lot. I have a website, chrisbalby.com it hasn't been updated in a little bit because I focus more on running the med spa, not on doing what else I do. But if you need me, definitely you can hire me for trainings and you can catch me in both those places.

[Ricky Shockley]

Chris, thank you so much. And yes, we'll definitely have to do it again. I like the idea for a ChatGPT episode.

[Chris Balaby]

Hi, everybody. Have a great day.

[Ricky Shockley]

Thanks. Bye. Thanks everyone for tuning in. This podcast is a production of Med Spa Magic Marketing. If your med spa or aesthetic practice is in need of digital marketing services, help with advertising on Facebook, Instagram, Google lead generation and booking more appointments, please visit Medspamagicmarketing.com.